Finding Refuge: Heart Work for Healing Collective Grief

by Michelle Cassandra Johnson

Learn how to process your own grief--as well as family, community, and global grief--with this fierce and openhearted guide to healing in an unjust world.In unsettling and uncertain times, the individual and collective heartbreak that lives in our bodies and communities can feel insurmountable. Many of us have been conditioned by the dominant culture to not name, focus on, or wade through the difficulties of our lives. But in order to heal, we must make space for grief and prioritize our wholeness, our humanity, and our inherent divinity.In Finding Refuge, social justice activist, social worker, and yoga teacher Michelle Cassandra Johnson offers those who feel brokenhearted, helpless, confused, powerless, and desperate the tools they need to be present with their grief while also remaining openhearted. Through powerful personal narrative and meditation and journaling practices at the end of each chapter that explore being present with your heart, Michelle empowers us to see that each of us has a role to play in building enough momentum to take intentional action and shift what is unsettled and unjust in the world. Finding Refuge is an invitation to pick up the shattered parts of yourself and remember your strength, wholeness, and sacredness through this practice of presence and attending to your grief.

Genres: Nonfiction, Grief, Psychology, Spirituality, Self Help, Social Justice, Mental Health

165 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 3, 2021

Reviews

[Jung · Rating 4 out of 5]

[3.5-4 stars] A guidebook of cultural analysis and spiritual practice (heavily rooted in Hinduism) for processing individual and societal grief. I read this book as part of my death worker self-study, and think it could be most useful for people hoping to better address and navigate loss of many kinds in the current political, economic, and social moment. It provides a lot of foundational anti-racism language, for those not as familiar with those concepts, and validates the trauma of marginalization as another, often unrecognized, form of grief. While I appreciated the individual practices, and know they will be useful for myself and others, I was hoping for a deeper exploration of approaches that were just as collective as the grief that Michelle Cassandra Johnson so clearly named. In focusing mostly on solo or small group practices to address cultural oppressions and injustices (e.g. the violence of the medical and prison industrial complexes), I think the book perpetuated the same individualistic norms it was hoping to disrupt. Potentially recommended for those looking for introductory-level readings that blend anti-racism, somatics, and grief work or individually-focused content to supplement other population- or societal-level analysis or interventions.

Goodreads Challenge: 59/60
Black Women Reading Challenge: a book on spirituality or faith

[Marianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wise and insightful book. Heartening and vulnerable. I don't share the author's spiritual framework, but I still found solace and inspiration here.

(Note: I read an advance reading copy of this book provided by its publisher.)

[Meredith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Snippets from the closing pages of the book
“People in my workshops didn't have a framework or language to describe their emotional responses as grief because, culturally, grief has been largely associated with the loss of a loved one.”

“People wanted to grieve in response to systemic oppression and the pain they felt in response to their awareness that something needed to shift about the way we are living. People wanted a space to grieve all the ways we live unsustainably. A space to grieve for the planet. People needed space to grieve relationships lost due to different belief systems, paradigms, and lived experiences.
People wanted to express grief related to how they were implicated in systems such as white supremacy”

There is “a need to normalize a conversation about cultural trauma and collective grief”

To the Author, I hear you, Cassandra.

[Alicia · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little "woo-woo", but beautiful. While her spiritual beliefs don't resonate with me, how she expresses herself is quite beautiful.

The meditations can be calming and help reconnect with your Self and grounding, but she's mixing a different kind of spiritilualism with yogic beliefs, which may not be for everyone. I do wish there were a bit more breathing practices, as most were a bit too mystic for my tastes. Though, you could modify how you approach the given practices to fit your beliefs.

Itsa rather short book. Worth the read, especially in her explanations of how she has seen the affects of dominate culture on herself and her loved ones.

I was able to read an advanced copy from Shambhala Publications, Inc. through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Karen Clements · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read for assignment. I probably would not have picked this one for myself, since the author's worldview, leaning heavily toward Hinduism, differs from my own. For those who enjoy the spiritual aspects of yoga, this is a good resource for working through collective grief and shared trauma. I found the Shared Language (glossary) to be most helpful in understanding the author's perspective.

[Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Michelle Cassandra Johnson is such a gift for sharing her knowledge and wisdom about the intersection between yoga, spirituality, and dismantling racism through her beautiful writing and exercises.

I feel like this book has really held me and held a light up during a time of major collective grief we are experiencing in our country and the world right now

[Judy · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book is well written and makes the author's passions clear. I respect the fact that people can have opposing views yet still work together in trying to find purpose and peace to make this world a better place. I found the book interesting although not a means to reflect my own spiritual values.

[Haley Ingersoll · Rating 4 out of 5]

“We are living during a time where remembering we are precious to one another and remembering that all parts of our ecosystem are precious to us might allow us to heal the fragmentation that comes from living in a culture that doesn’t allow us to be whole or see ourselves as part of the whole.”

[Jade · Rating 4 out of 5]

This dense little book tackles the question of what to do with our individual and collective grief. From our selves, our families, our communities and our globe, we are overwhelmed with the heartbreak of being alive and awake in this world. Johnsons’s powerful resource offers the reader reflections, prompts and practices to shift our experience- instead of hiding from our grief, this book is a how-to guide for finding refuge within it.

Johnson’s writing style is powerful and personal, her experiences blend imagination with deep insight and her unique call to healing asks us to go within ourselves and to bring our bodies and embodiment with us. I found every chapter of this book helpful and healing. I wish every person living with the weight of this world could find refuge in Johnson’s generosity of wisdom. IG:@the.farewell.library

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received an Advance Review Copy.
I think it's a good resource, I just don't have the kind of meditation & spiritual practices that would be a good match.

[Carol & Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

👍 book..

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Jessie Everts · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is beautiful. I will read it again and again.

[Samantha Coffin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone should read this book. It constantly gave + invited me to heal + give back.

[Laurie Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tender, difficult, full of authentic love <3

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love each one of the guided practices in this book. Fantastic book for these chaotic times

[Artemisia Hunt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This unique book is a balm for anyone interested in applying a spiritual perspective to the work of healing the individual and collective grief of racial oppression and social injustice. Michelle Cassandra Johnson brings her training as a yoga teacher, social worker and intuitive healer to bear on the particular type of grieving that is felt by those who have been oppressed, marginalized or wronged by the dominant culture. Carefully crafting a language that describes the “medicines” needed to do this difficult but necessary grief work, Johnson sees this process as an opportunity to not only reconcile past wrongs, but to deal with the present day problems of deeply imbedded systemic racism and racist violence. There is much sadness and pain discussed here in the many traumas in need of healing, but the book also provides hope, inspiration and valuable guidance as well. The work she describes with connecting to our ancestors and the wisdom and support they can provide is particularly powerful and heartfelt. And the part about her foray into beekeeping was just magical as she began to delight in the perfect ways that the hive worked together toward the common goals that guaranteed their very survival. Finding Refuge uses this last example to suggest that maybe by working together in a wonderfully holistic and compassionate way we might just be able to create a more just and loving human society ourselves.